(WXIA) -- Cookware retailer Williams-Sonoma said pressure cookers were pulled from the shelves of several stores in the Boston area for a few days following last week's bombing.

Investigators said the accused bombers, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, used pressure cookers to make the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring more than 260 others. In the manhunt and shootouts that followed, Tamerlan was killed before authorities captured Dzhokhar.

A company spokesperson told 11Alive News the cookers were removed by store managers after members of the news media had come in to the stores to purchase them. The spokesperson said the purchases had upset a number of the staffers in the stores who had known people who had been directly affected by the tragic events.

He said that the cookers, which had been placed in the back rooms of the stores, have since been returned to stores' shelves.

The availability of cookers on the shelves at stores elsewhere across the nation, including the seven stores in metro Atlanta, was not affected. The cookers also remain available on the company's website.